An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry Part 22

So, at home, the sick tall yellow d.u.c.h.ess Was left with the infant in her clutches, {90} She being the daughter of G.o.d knows who: And now was the time to revisit her tribe.

Abroad and afar they went, the two, And let our people rail and gibe At the empty hall and extinguished fire, As loud as we liked, but ever in vain, Till after long years we had our desire, And back came the Duke and his mother again.

5.

And he came back the pertest little ape That ever affronted human shape; {100} Full of his travel, struck at himself.

You'd say, he despised our bluff old ways?

--Not he! For in Paris they told the elf That our rough North land was the Land of Lays, The one good thing left in evil days; Since the Mid-Age was the Heroic Time, And only in wild nooks like ours Could you taste of it yet as in its prime, And see true castles with proper towers, Young-hearted women, old-minded men, {110} And manners now as manners were then.

So, all that the old Dukes had been, without knowing it, This Duke would fain know he was, without being it; 'Twas not for the joy's self, but the joy of his showing it, Nor for the pride's self, but the pride of our seeing it, He revived all usages thoroughly worn-out, The souls of them fumed-forth, the hearts of them torn-out: And chief in the chase his neck he perilled, On a lathy horse, all legs and length, With blood for bone, all speed, no strength; {120} --They should have set him on red Berold With the red eye slow consuming in fire, And the thin stiff ear like an abbey spire!

-- 101. struck at himself: astonished at his own importance.

119. lathy: long and slim.

6.

Well, such as he was, he must marry, we heard; And out of a convent, at the word, Came the lady, in time of spring.

--Oh, old thoughts they cling, they cling!

That day, I know, with a dozen oaths I clad myself in thick hunting-clothes Fit for the chase of urox or buffle {130} In winter-time when you need to m.u.f.fle.

But the Duke had a mind we should cut a figure, And so we saw the lady arrive: My friend, I have seen a white crane bigger!

She was the smallest lady alive, Made in a piece of nature's madness, Too small, almost, for the life and gladness That over-filled her, as some hive Out of the bears' reach on the high trees Is crowded with its safe merry bees: {140} In truth, she was not hard to please!

Up she looked, down she looked, round at the mead, Straight at the castle, that's best indeed To look at from outside the walls: As for us, styled the "serfs and thralls", She as much thanked me as if she had said it, (With her eyes, do you understand?) Because I patted her horse while I led it; And Max, who rode on her other hand, Said, no bird flew past but she inquired {150} What its true name was, nor ever seemed tired-- If that was an eagle she saw hover, And the green and gray bird on the field was the plover, When suddenly appeared the Duke: And as down she sprung, the small foot pointed On to my hand,--as with a rebuke, And as if his backbone were not jointed, The Duke stepped rather aside than forward, And welcomed her with his grandest smile; And, mind you, his mother all the while {160} Chilled in the rear, like a wind to nor'ward; And up, like a weary yawn, with its pulleys Went, in a shriek, the rusty portcullis; And, like a glad sky the north-wind sullies, The lady's face stopped its play, As if her first hair had grown gray; For such things must begin some one day.

-- 130. urox: wild bull; Ger. 'auer-ochs'. buffle: buffalo.

7.

In a day or two she was well again; As who should say, "You labor in vain!

This is all a jest against G.o.d, who meant {170} I should ever be, as I am, content And glad in his sight; therefore, glad I will be."

So, smiling as at first went she.

8.

She was active, stirring, all fire-- Could not rest, could not tire-- To a stone she might have given life!

(I myself loved once, in my day) --For a shepherd's, miner's, huntsman's wife, (I had a wife, I know what I say) Never in all the world such an one! {180} And here was plenty to be done, And she that could do it, great or small, She was to do nothing at all.

There was already this man in his post, This in his station, and that in his office, And the Duke's plan admitted a wife, at most, To meet his eye, with the other trophies, Now outside the hall, now in it, To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen, At the proper place in the proper minute, {190} And die away the life between.

And it was amusing enough, each infraction Of rule--(but for after-sadness that came) To hear the consummate self-satisfaction With which the young Duke and the old dame Would let her advise, and criticise, And, being a fool, instruct the wise, And, childlike, parcel out praise or blame: They bore it all in complacent guise, As though an artificer, after contriving {200} A wheel-work image as if it were living, Should find with delight it could motion to strike him!

So found the Duke, and his mother like him: The lady hardly got a rebuff-- That had not been contemptuous enough, With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause, And kept off the old mother-cat's claws.

-- 180. such an one: i.e., for a shepherd's, miner's, huntsman's wife.

9.

So, the little lady grew silent and thin, Paling and ever paling, As the way is with a hid chagrin; {210} And the Duke perceived that she was ailing, And said in his heart, "'Tis done to spite me, But I shall find in my power to right me!"

Don't swear, friend! The old one, many a year, Is in h.e.l.l; and the Duke's self. . .you shall hear.

10.

Well, early in autumn, at first winter-warning, When the stag had to break with his foot, of a morning, A drinking-hole out of the fresh tender ice, That covered the pond till the sun, in a trice, Loosening it, let out a ripple of gold, {220} And another and another, and faster and faster, Till, dimpling to blindness, the wide water rolled, Then it so chanced that the Duke our master Asked himself what were the pleasures in season, And found, since the calendar bade him be hearty, He should do the Middle Age no treason In resolving on a hunting-party, Always provided, old books showed the way of it!

What meant old poets by their strictures?

And when old poets had said their say of it, {230} How taught old painters in their pictures?

We must revert to the proper channels, Workings in tapestry, paintings on panels, And gather up woodcraft's authentic traditions: Here was food for our various ambitions, As on each case, exactly stated-- To encourage your dog, now, the properest chirrup, Or best prayer to St. Hubert on mounting your stirrup-- We of the household took thought and debated.

Blessed was he whose back ached with the jerkin {240} His sire was wont to do forest-work in; Blesseder he who n.o.bly sunk "ohs"

And "ahs" while he tugged on his grandsire's trunk-hose; What signified hats if they had no rims on, Each slouching before and behind like the scallop, And able to serve at sea for a shallop, Loaded with lacquer and looped with crimson?

So that the deer now, to make a short rhyme on't, What with our Venerers, p.r.i.c.kers, and Verderers, Might hope for real hunters at length and not murderers, {250} And oh the Duke's tailor, he had a hot time on't!

-- 238. St. Hubert: patron saint of huntsmen.

247. lacquer: yellowish varnish.

249. Venerers, p.r.i.c.kers, and Verderers: huntsmen, light-hors.e.m.e.n, and guardians of the vert and venison in the Duke's forest.

11.

Now you must know that when the first dizziness Of flap-hats and buff-coats and jack-boots subsided, The Duke put this question, "The Duke's part provided, Had not the d.u.c.h.ess some share in the business?"

For out of the mouth of two or three witnesses Did he establish all fit-or-unfitnesses; And, after much laying of heads together, Somebody's cap got a notable feather By the announcement with proper unction {260} That he had discovered the lady's function; Since ancient authors gave this tenet, "When horns wind a mort and the deer is at siege, Let the dame of the castle p.r.i.c.k forth on her jennet, And with water to wash the hands of her liege In a clean ewer with a fair towelling, Let her preside at the disembowelling."

Now, my friend, if you had so little religion As to catch a hawk, some falcon-lanner, And thrust her broad wings like a banner {270} Into a coop for a vulgar pigeon; And if day by day and week by week You cut her claws, and sealed her eyes, And clipped her wings, and tied her beak, Would it cause you any great surprise If, when you decided to give her an airing, You found she needed a little preparing?-- I say, should you be such a curmudgeon, If she clung to the perch, as to take it in dudgeon?

Yet when the Duke to his lady signified, {280} Just a day before, as he judged most dignified, In what a pleasure she was to partic.i.p.ate,-- And, instead of leaping wide in flashes, Her eyes just lifted their long lashes, As if pressed by fatigue even he could not dissipate, And duly acknowledged the Duke's forethought, But spoke of her health, if her health were worth aught, Of the weight by day and the watch by night, And much wrong now that used to be right, So, thanking him, declined the hunting,-- {290} Was conduct ever more affronting?

With all the ceremony settled-- With the towel ready, and the sewer Polis.h.i.+ng up his oldest ewer, And the jennet pitched upon, a piebald, Black-barred, cream-coated, and pink eye-balled,-- No wonder if the Duke was nettled!

And when she persisted nevertheless,-- Well, I suppose here's the time to confess That there ran half round our lady's chamber {300} A balcony none of the hardest to clamber; And that Jacynth the tire-woman, ready in waiting, Staid in call outside, what need of relating?

And since Jacynth was like a June rose, why, a fervent Adorer of Jacynth of course was your servant; And if she had the habit to peep through the cas.e.m.e.nt, How could I keep at any vast distance?

And so, as I say, on the lady's persistence, The Duke, dumb stricken with amazement, Stood for a while in a sultry smother, {310} And then, with a smile that partook of the awful, Turned her over to his yellow mother To learn what was decorous and lawful; And the mother smelt blood with a cat-like instinct, As her cheek quick whitened through all its quince-tinct.

Oh, but the lady heard the whole truth at once!

What meant she?--Who was she?--Her duty and station, The wisdom of age and the folly of youth, at once, Its decent regard and its fitting relation-- In brief, my friends, set all the devils in h.e.l.l free {320} And turn them out to carouse in a belfry And treat the priests to a fifty-part canon, And then you may guess how that tongue of hers ran on!

Well, somehow or other it ended at last, And, licking her whiskers, out she pa.s.sed; And after her,--making (he hoped) a face Like Emperor Nero or Sultan Saladin, Stalked the Duke's self with the austere grace Of ancient hero or modern paladin, From door to staircase--oh, such a solemn {330} Unbending of the vertebral column!

-- 263. wind a mort: announce that the deer is taken.

273. sealed: more properly spelt 'seeled', a term in falconry; Lat.

'cilium', an eyelid; 'seel', to close up the eyelids of a hawk, or other bird (Fr. 'ciller les yeux'). "Come, seeling Night, Skarfe vp the tender Eye of pittiful Day." 'Macbeth', III. II. 46.

322. fifty-part canon: "A canon, in music, is a piece wherein the subject is repeated, in various keys: and being strictly obeyed in the repet.i.tion, becomes the 'canon'--the imperative LAW--to what follows.

Fifty of such parts would be indeed a notable peal: to manage three is enough of an achievement for a good musician."--From Poet's Letter to the Editor.

12.

However, at sunrise our company mustered; And here was the huntsman bidding unkennel, And there 'neath his bonnet the p.r.i.c.ker bl.u.s.tered, With feather dank as a bough of wet fennel; For the court-yard walls were filled with fog You might cut as an axe chops a log-- Like so much wool for color and bulkiness; And out rode the Duke in a perfect sulkiness, Since, before breakfast, a man feels but queasily, {340} And a sinking at the lower abdomen Begins the day with indifferent omen.

And lo! as he looked around uneasily, The sun ploughed the fog up and drove it asunder, This way and that, from the valley under; And, looking through the court-yard arch, Down in the valley, what should meet him But a troop of gypsies on their march?

No doubt with the annual gifts to greet him.